A method to achieve the caseless ammunition firing with liquid propellant for automatic weapons

Abstract

The present invention proposed a method to achieve the caseless ammunition firing with liquid propellant for automatic weapons. The weapons with this method were driven by a servo motor that led a slider ( 9 ) for linear reciprocating motion, and then the slider ( 9 ) drove a combustion chamber ( 3 ) and a rotary lock ( 4 ) to complete the projectile loading and the combustion chamber ( 3 ) locking. The combustion chamber ( 3 ) locking was done with the help of a fixed plunger ( 7 ). A separated binary liquid gunpowder was used as a propellant. The constant liquid propellant injection pressure was maintained by a constant pressure regulator; and an electronic fire control unit (EFCU) precisely control two solenoid valves opening time in order to control the injection amount of the mixture. The gunpowder was injected through the nozzle on the plunger ( 7 ), and was ignited by an electronic igniter to launch the projectile.

1 . A method to achieve automatically reciprocating motion and latching the bolt with electric means for firearms, characterized in that the method comprises:
 the projectile filling and bolt latching were achieved after reciprocating motion driven by electric motor; the driven force can be from a rotating servo motor or a linear servo motor; the bolt was driven by motor to perform the reciprocating motion which leads the projectile filling and bolt locking; the position of the bolt can be obtained from the signal of the servo motor, which could also determine whether the bolt has been locked; in the locked state, the trigger signal could trigger gunpowder injection and ignition as well as a series of follow-up actions.   
     
     
         2 . A method of automatically loading a projectile by linear reciprocating motion of the combustion chamber, characterized in that the method comprises:
 The combustion chamber, as a moving part inside the cartridge receiver, performed linear reciprocating motion along the axis of the bore, the front part of the combustion chamber is in a form of convex cone, the bore was shaped in a corresponding female cone; the cone-shaped end of the combustion chamber has a triangular fin, the bore has a corresponding groove for the fin, the groove can provide the guidance for the projectile to enter the bore, here known as the projectile guidance groove; the magazine was slightly tilted into the range of the female cone of the bore alone the axis of the feed lips; the projectile was pushed against the outer wall of the combustion chamber under the force of the magazine spring; and the projectile was sliding on the outer wall of the combustion chamber with frictions; when the combustion chamber left the bore with a rearward motion, the cone-shaped end moved back and positioned completely rear of the magazine opening, a projectile will be pushed by spring into the space where the combustion chamber doing reciprocating motion, when the combustion chamber moved in the direction to the bore, the triangular fin on the cone-shaped end will push the projectile out of the feed lips of the magazine, the projectile will be pushed along the projectile guidance groove into the female cone section of the bore, when the projectile just entered the bore, the feed lips still held the projectile partially, through the self-guided ability of the female cone, the projectile will enter automatically into the bore under the pushing force of the cone-shaped end to complete the loading.   
     
     
         3 . A method of achieving the gastight locking of bore and combustion chamber, characterized in that the method comprises:
 The main body of the combustion chamber has a thick-walled tubular shape, the gastight sealing of the combustion chamber and the bore is achieved by their conical surfaces touching; the combustion chamber body and its cone-shaped end are made with different materials. The main body of the combustion chamber is made of high strength material; the cone-shaped end is made of high elastic material, and its high elasticity made the cone-shaped end is easy to deform under high pressure, which improves gas tightness between the bore and the combustion chamber; there is a gear-shaped rotary lock at the tail of the combustion chamber, inside the cartridge receiver, there are the corresponding teeth; the rotary lock and combustion chamber are coaxial, rotary lock is positioned outside of the combustion chamber's tail, the rotary lock can rotate around the axis freely, the tail of the combustion chamber is a shaft shoulder, together with a retaining ring, they can limit the rotary lock sliding axially; the cartridge receiver has a L-shaped guide groove, the rotary lock can be moved along the guide groove with the guidance of guide pin; when the projectile loading is completed, the combustion chamber cone-shaped end and bore's female cone overlap to stop the movement, and the rotary lock will continue to rotate under the combined effect the guide pin and guide groove, and finally make the gear teeth of the rotary lock overlap with corresponding teeth inside the cartridge receiver, then the combustion chamber can no longer move back and forth along the axial to achieve latch-up; rotary lock teeth and the cartridge receiver teeth are shaped in wedge, by rotating of the rotary lock, combustion chamber can be pushed as close as possible to the bore, so that the cone-shaped end and the female cone of the bore can fit closely.   
     
     
         4 . A method of achieving the gas tightness at the front end of a combustion chamber by means of a cone-shaped end of the projectile extending into a combustion chamber, characterized in that the method comprises:
 The diameter of the gas outlet of the combustion chamber is smaller than the diameter of the projectile, but slightly larger than the diameter of the trailing end of the projectile. The gas outlet is in form of a certain trumpet shape outward. During the loading of the projectile, the front tip of the projectile will enter into the bore under the pushing force from combustion chamber, at the same time the end of the projectile will be partially entered the combustion chamber through the gas outlet to form the gastight condition.   
     
     
         5 . A method of achieving gas tightness of the combustion chamber by a fixed plunger, characterized in that the method comprises:
 A cylindrical plunger and combustion chamber are coaxial, the plunger was fixed on the cartridge receiver with the screw, the plunger is inserted into the combustion chamber through the tail end, with a clearance fit to form certain gastight conditions, similar to the piston and cylinder; The combustion chamber is guided by the guidance groove and the plunger to maintain accuracy of reciprocating motion along a straight line; after the burning of the gunpowder, the combustion chamber gas outlet transferred energy to the projectile while the plunger is also taken the gas pressure and passes it to the cartridge receiver.   
     
     
         6 . A method of performing gunpowder injection and ignition by means of a stationary plunger, characterized in that the method comprises:
 The plunger has machined deep holes along the axial direction, the holes are used to install the igniter and as a fuel injection aperture.   
     
     
         7 . A method for performing joint-action of liquid gunpowder injection and ignition with respect to the characteristics of liquid gunpowder leaking, which is characterized in that the method comprises:
 The retention of liquid gunpowder in the combustion chamber always occurs at a moment after the trigger is pulled; the injection and ignition of the liquid gunpowder are carried out in conjunction, the injection of the fuel and the oxidizer is before the ignition; when signal sent by the trigger, EFCU will determine the other launch conditions and then issued the turn-on signal to solenoid valve to inject fuel and oxidizer, at the moment when solenoid valve closed, EFCU will send the ignition command to igniter to complete the ignition; the total time consumption of injection and ignition was controlled within the response time of human in order to avoid shooting delay.   
     
     
         8 . A method of performing accurate single shot, characterized in that the method comprises:
 In the single shot mode, after each launch, the gun will give an appropriate delay before performing latching and stop, and waiting until the next ignition command; when the trigger is pulled again, EFCU will give conjunction signal to inject gunpowder and complete the ignition launch, after the ignition, EFCU will perform the delay again and then drive the bolt to complete the loading and locking, the delay can ensure the subsequent action performing after that the previous projectile has left the muzzle.   
     
     
         9 . A method of achieving high-speed firing, characterized in that the method comprises:
 In the burst and full auto mode, the combustion chamber will continuously perform the reciprocating cycle to complete the loading and locking without cease until pre-set number of shots was achieved or the trigger was released; EFCU can determine the combustion chamber position from the angular displacement signal of the servo motor, and within the appropriate time period, give command of gunpowder injection and ignition according to the combustion chamber position information; In each of the high-speed continuous chamber-lock cycles, there is a moment that the combustion chamber is at rest in a locking state, the gunpowder and ignition are completed during this time period, the servo motor and other moving parts are always in a continuous cycle of running state in order to avoid the frequent turn on and turn off which could cause delay and affect the shooting speed.   
     
     
         10 . A method of implementing fire controlling by using microcontroller, characterized in that the method comprises:
 Using microcontroller and relative program to actualize intelligent fire controlling unit, all kinds of electronic switches such as: trigger, fire mode switch, power selection switch and environment-related sensors are considered as input devices. Solenoid valves, igniter, gunpowder and projectiles remaining quantity indicator are used as output devices. and the servo motor controller has both input and output functions. The EFCU processes the input command according to the pre-set program and outputs the result to the corresponding output device.   
     
     
         11 . A method of implementing a trigger function by using an electronic switch via EFCU, characterized in that the method comprises:
 The use of an electronic switch to achieve the trigger function, the switch provides trigger signal for EFCU, and then the subsequent command of the EFCU will instruct the other components to complete the shooting action.   
     
     
         12 . A method of implementing safety and fire mode switching via EFCU by using an electronic switch, characterized in that the method comprises:
 The use of rotary band switch or other forms of multi-pole switch to achieve the weapon's fire mode switching function, different rotation position on behalf of the safety off (power off), single shot, multiple shot (2 shots or 3 shots) and burst fire mode; when the trigger signal is sent, the EFCU will determine the fire mode according to the state of the firepower mode switch.   
     
     
         13 . An method of implementing the weapon launching power adjusting by means of an electronic switch via EFCU, characterized in that the method comprises:
 The use of rotary band switch or other forms of multi-pole switch to achieve the selection of weapon launching power, the corresponding launching power can be high, medium and low and anti-riot non-lethal power; EFCU will determine the opening duration of the solenoid valve according to the position of the switch, and control the amount of gunpowder injected to determine the launch power.   
     
     
         14 . An method of implementing the gun grenades launching and blank launching by means of an electronic switch via EFCU, characterized in that the method comprises:
 Using electronic switch to achieve the grenade (blank) launching. When the grenade mode ( ) is turned on, the combustion chamber will always be in the locked state, the system will no longer load the projectile until the switch is turned off.   
     
     
         15 . A method of adjusting an internal trajectory to automatically adapt the variance of ambience, characterized in that the method comprises:
 Through the temperature, humidity and pressure sensor to obtain environmental shooting parameters, EFCU determines the corresponding correction parameters, adjust the solenoid valve opening duration to change the amount of gunpowder injection, by adjusting the internal trajectory characteristics to ensure the consistency of the external trajectories.